Let’s face it: Despite their support, guidance, and encouragement, dissertation chairs are neither dissertation coaches nor editors. University guidelines and rubrics only help you so much. You know what sections and subsections you need and you have an idea of what is expected to go in each. But how do you know, exactly, where to find that information and how to incorporate it into your dissertation? That’s where a dissertation coach and dissertation editor come in.

Often, doctoral students struggle to present the right material in the right way and obtain committee approval. Not only are the multiple submissions frustrating and tiresome, but they lead to added tuition costs. Want to reduce the frustration and move through the program more quickly? Consider hiring a dissertation coach and an editor. Now there are some differences in what a dissertation coach and an editor does for you. Let’s break it down.

What Does a Dissertation Coach Do?

As a Dissertation Success Boot Camp scholar, you will receive unlimited, one-on-one support—phone/video calls, email exchanges, and document reviews—throughout the length of your plan. You can connect with other students in the Dissertation Success Facebook Forum, sharing advice, finding support and encouragement, and even making new friends in the process. Let’s walk through some reasons why hiring a dissertation coach is smart.

1. Dissertation coaches have been where you are

Dissertation coaches are people who have been where you are. They were doctoral students and researchers and then, after earning their degrees, went on to serve as professors and dissertation committee members. In other words, dissertation coaches know what it takes to make a strong, suitable product and can help you do the same.

2. Dissertation coaches are there for you

A dissertation coach is there for you. More than just a cheerleader, a coach provides one-on-one guidance and support. Coaches critique your work and suggest how to make it stronger.

Not every coach is the same and every coach has their unique strengths.

What Does an Editor Do?

As helpful as dissertation coaches are, they are methodologists and structural/content guides. They might point out weaknesses in your writing, but they aren’t there to correct it for you. That’s where an editor comes in.

A professional editor is one who provides full-service, comprehensive editing and formatting. Common areas addressed include grammar, academic language/tone, sentence/paragraph construction, weak writing/writing style violations (e.g., passive voice, anthropomorphism), wordiness, and word choice. So let’s walk through reasons why hiring an editor is smart.

3. Dissertation editors are unbiased

While it can be difficult to receive critiques, it is essential if we are going to continue to improve our writing. Why does a book writer higher an editor? So that they can correct their grammatical mistakes, and improve the overall flow, and formatting. Book writers are too close to their story to see all of the mistakes. In the same way, dissertation students are so engrossed in their content that they miss mistakes.

You’ll want to hire an editor who is familiar with style guidelines (most often, APA 7th ed.) and your university’s formatting requirements. A good editor will provide a finessed written product and a properly formatted document. Your references and citations will also align and meet style guidelines.

Hiring a Dissertation Coach and an Editor is A Worthy Investment

Just like coaching, editing is an investment. However, both services are designed to minimize your tuition expense, frustration, and degree completion time. In other words, coaching and editing pay for themselves. But remember: You get what you pay for. Just like any other product or service you purchase, you’ll want to choose and invest wisely.

If you want to know more about hiring a dissertation coach, you’re in the right place! Consultations are always free; just schedule a strategy call. During this call, we’ll listen to you as you describe your situation, then determine what you need and how we can help. To learn more about hiring an editor, you can check out our editor’s website. We’re always happy to help!

I have always been a good student.  If you gave me a syllabus and a rubric, off I went to complete the task at hand. I always worked ahead and, in the end, garnished the coveted A on every assignment. But then, I decided to pursue my doctorate.  Wow! I never imagined how challenging the process would turn out to be.

I sailed through the core classes. All A’s and one B (that darn statistics). As I finished the last course needed prior to becoming a doctoral candidate and writing my dissertation, I hit a roadblock….the feedback from my dissertation chair. I was confused, lost, and in way over my head.  I literally had decided, in that course, that I was going to quit the program.  Who did I think I was, after all?  I started questioning my abilities, labeling myself as an impostor (see Impostor Syndrome), and had concluded that obtaining my doctorate just wasn’t worth it.

I had fallen into the double trap that many doctoral scholars face: believing that I was solely responsible for my own success AND feeling that my committee was not there to help me. This article from The Chronicle directly addresses the question of who is responsible for a doctoral student’s success.

I remembered seeing an ad on Facebook regarding a dissertation coach. I thought to myself, what could it hurt just to reach out to the advertised coaching service to see what they were about. Having that phone call changed my life as a doctoral scholar and confirmed that I needed to hire a dissertation coach.

Eliminated confusion

As an online student, I felt alone. A lot. The program was structured in a way that required a student to self-teach.  My professors were amazing, but there were a lot of times when I would be confused with the terminology associated with the dissertation process. I also struggled to understand the feedback given to me by my committee. I struggled with gaining clarity on theoretical frameworks, methodologies and alignment, to name a few. After hiring a dissertation coach, I gained unlimited access to someone who was not only qualified to assist me with the dissertation process, but who could also help me decipher through the requirements associated with writing a dissertation. The dissertation coach helped to eliminate the confusion that I felt when I reviewed the feedback and made it clear what my committee was asking me for. I hired a Dissertation Coach so I could eliminate all of the confusion. 

Increased Accountability

One of the best things about the dissertation writing process is that you can write at your own pace. One of the worst things about the dissertation writing process is that you can write at your own pace. Accountability has always been a strength for me. But I found that as an adult learner, with many competing activities at work and at home, I needed an even higher level of accountability. In collaboration with my school’s timelines, rubrics, and checklists, my coach gave me tasks each week in advance of our next meeting.  I did not want to get on the phone with my coach without reaching the milestone that we had set for that week.  Knowing that I would have this type of frequent contact made me more accountable and allowed me to meet the commitments that I had made with my coach and with myself.  I hired a dissertation coach to increase my accountability.

Worked Proactively

My chair told me in our first phone conversation that most students had to take an 8-week supplemental class because they were not able to meet the deliverables set in the 12-weeks allowed per dissertation course. I knew that was not an option for me. Aside from wanting to be done, financially it was not feasible for me to pay for additional courses beyond what the program required. My dissertation coach had sat on committees, so she was very familiar with what the committees looked for and what the next part of the process required.  On my own, I would have sat and waited for feedback. I would have also paused until my chair told me what to do next.  Having a coach allowed me to not only work ahead, but it also allowed me to finish ahead. I completed and defended my dissertation 5 weeks prior to my last course ending. I hired a dissertation coach so that I could work proactively.

Unlimited Support

I was not my chair’s only student.  She had many students in many disciplines and was conducting her own research.  On a personal note, she went on two 30-day vacations, out of the country, while I was writing my dissertation.  She was not always available when I had questions or needed additional support.  Having a dissertation coach allowed me to be constantly supported.  My coach promised me unlimited support, via email and scheduled calls, and that is exactly what I got. The school had a pretty liberal timeline for my committee to get back to me.  But that would not help me when I was working on the weekend or through the holidays. I hired a dissertation coach for the unlimited help and support they could provide me. 

I hired a dissertation coach to help me get through the dissertation process with guidance, support, and accountability. I hired a dissertation coach to reduce my stress and to minimize the confusion I felt.  I hired a dissertation coach so that I would finish. Because I hired a dissertation coach, I earned my doctorate! Sure – dissertation coaching is an investment. Yet I know for certain that this is one of the best investments that I have ever made. 

This article was written by Dr. Maja from our team. 

I hear it on every call. My client tells me that they were doing well in their doctoral classes, and then they got to the dissertation phase and time seemed to stop. Gone are the weekly due dates, the feedback on individual assignments, and the pace of an 8- or 10-week course. They are frustrated by the lack of specific direction, the feedback that they don’t quite understand, and why their writing is now scrutinized to a level they have not experienced before. 

If they got this far in their program, why are they foundering now?

There are a variety of reasons why the dissertation experience may feel different from doctoral programmatic courses — the primary one being that you are now expected to be self-directed to a greater extent, and magically able to discern what your university and your program is expecting from you in each section of the dissertation template they provide. 

As a dissertation chair, I understand this thinking…somewhat. Universities expect that growth comes from struggle and sacrifice, and those who persevere are the ones who are willing to read all the instructions the school provides, read all chapters in the methodology texts, learn the proper formatting requirements to ensure that citations and references and tables and figures are all designed correctly, and have an editor at the ready to review their work before they submit it to their committee. Expectations are high; communication about those expectations less so.

Writing a Dissertation Is Hard, Because Life Gets in the Way

As a dissertation coach, I know the reality: doctoral students are working full time, taking care of their children and their aging parents, working extra shifts to afford school, and have little time to learn the nuances of how to construct an excellent problem statement section that aligns with their purpose statement section that aligns with their research questions and that aligns with their methodology.

And yet…those are some of the most crucial steps that a dissertation writer must take to have an effective start. Explaining that alignment strategy rarely comes from the dissertation chair in a cohesive way; it usually arrives as a rejection email stating that the committee has not approved the proposal because the study is misaligned. The doctoral student is left to figure out what that means. However, if the writer just had someone explain this alignment to them at the start, they would not have wasted time and energy organizing their study incorrectly.

Your Dissertation Chair Is Probably Not a Dissertation Coach

Add to that frustration the turnaround time that often accompanies the rejections of their drafts. Dissertation chairs may have two weeks to return feedback, during which time the student is either waiting for advice on next steps or taking those next steps without the benefit of the corrective feedback from the committee on the first draft. With the lengthy times between feedback from their chair or committee, the student is adding to their tuition costs, feeling increasingly frustrated, and wondering if the degree is worth it or even attainable. They’ve come so far, only to arrive at defeat. The challenge stems from the fact that most dissertation chairs do not see themselves as a dissertation coach. 

For each of these students, I wish I could turn back time and counsel them to hire a dissertation coach at the start. We are not duplicating the role of your chair or your committee. We are there to provide a rapid turnaround time on reviews of your work, reducing a two-week waiting period to three days. We coach you on all of those methodology terms you missed while taking quantitative and qualitative analysis. We help you understand the typical structure for each section of the dissertation, and shortcut your learning curve on how to analyze your data. We teach you how to align your study, and how to choose the best theoretical framework to support it.

We are able to do these things because we work for you, not the university. We are not stuck in faculty meetings, or writing progress reports for university deans, or left balancing the egos on your committee. We are there for you, as much as you need us. 

I’ve coached dissertation students for 8 years. I’ve worked with students who hired me on day 1, and I’ve worked with students who hired me after they conducted their data collection but didn’t know what to do next. Those who hired me on day 1 have always finished with the fewest roadblocks, and always in less time than their cohort. But those students who found Dissertation Success somewhere along the way also found great benefit in the coaching service. They tell us things like, “I wish I had found you years ago.” They experience the relief of having someone on their side, working for them, guiding them through what they need to do, and cheering them on with each milestone achieved. 

As I always tell my clients, writing a dissertation is hard work. If it were easy, everyone would have a doctorate. But writing a dissertation is also not rocket science. You can, with guidance, craft a manageable writing experience that will yield an award of “Dr.” before your name. Hiring a dissertation coach can help make that writing experience less painful, less time consuming, and ultimately more effective. 

This article was contributed by Dr. Tara, one of our longest serving expert dissertation coaches.

Are you frustrated in your dissertation writing process? Schedule a free strategy call with one of our coaches today. There is no obligation. You will walk away encouraged – knowing that there is someone that has already dealt with the psychological and emotional challenges of writing a dissertation.